


paint us red, red with love

by dvinare



Series: we told you this was melodrama [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Based on 365 Fresh - Triple H, Blood, Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Trans Na Jaemin, Unreliable Narrator, this whole thing is an acid trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27513796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dvinare/pseuds/dvinare
Summary: “Hey,” Jaemin jabs her finger between his ribs. There’s no flesh to protect the tender bones so Renjun visibly winces. Huh. So even with a screw loose his body can still register pain. Jaemin’s clearly expecting an indicator that he’s listening so Renjun blinks her way slowly. “You want to fucking die, right?”or: Renjun loves Jaemin almost as much as he hates Donghyuck.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin, Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Series: we told you this was melodrama [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010847
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	paint us red, red with love

**Author's Note:**

> “We'll end up painted on the road  
> Red and chrome  
> All the broken glass sparkling  
> I guess we're partying”

Jaemin loves them both.

It’s that simple. Jaemin loves them both and Renjun hates her for that because, of course, she has enough of it to spare. _Love_.

Jaemin is every shade of red. She’s the metallic taste of blood when Renjun licks his ugly wounds clean, she’s the stolen rubies that adorn Donghyuck’s too long, too bony fingers, she’s the bottles of merlot and burgundy, which they cannot afford to buy. She’s sweet passion, overflowing lust. Love unbound, ample desire. Rich, insatiable carnality. 

Renjun can’t hold it against her because at her very core Na Jaemin is so very lovable. It is in her nature. Not one soul can give away as much as she does without wishing for something in return. It’s only human. And what she wants is him. And also _him_. 

Renjun’s made peace with the fact that in the creases of her mind, in the empty spaces between her ribs, in the cavities and orifices of her being will always reside another. A person not quite him in the sense that they’re separate entities entirely but both love her dearly, equally, in a way so eerily similar, almost like they were cut from the same cloth. Maybe they were. And, anyways, her heart was always crafted to house lovers in pairs, Renjun sensed that from the start. 

That knowledge, however, did nothing to quench the fierce hatred he felt in the face of Lee Donghyuck. 

Jaemin could love anyone else in the world and Renjun would be fine with it. He wouldn’t understand it but he’d be able to pick on what makes them lovable in her eyes. There is always something dear about each and every person she’s adored, but not him. Never him.

Renjun is the scum of earth himself so it’s only given that he hates Donghyuck the second he sets eyes on him. Pot meet kettle.

They’re both despicable in ways equally disturbing. Renjun can’t stand the fact that Jaemin loves not just one but both of them. The worst part of it all is that her love is one that’s without limitations. She wants them not in spite of their unspeakable flaws but because of them and it makes Renjun want to scream his lungs out, until his throat is raw and red with love.

Renjun is the dirt beneath her feet, Donghyuck is the grey fumes she inhales unwillingly. 

“I’m the fucking angel of death.” Jaemin giggles around the rim of a shot glass.

Renjun sighs. She is the angel of death.

Him and Donghyuck, they’re the scum of earth, alright, but she’s the only one between them three who’s had blood on her hands. 

Donghyuck had found her like that. Hair white as snow, a ghastly contrast to the red stains on her shaking body. Drying blood between her fingers, underneath her nails. Someone’s life painted on her skin in thick strokes. 

Sometimes, when the drinks don’t work anymore, Renjun’s mind wanders to places forbidden. He tries to imagine Jaemin, a cruel, savage version of her who on that fateful day had taken his life instead. It’s a morbid thought. It’s a morbid thought.

Maybe Renjun should say it to her face so it’d finally sink in. Just how fucking little regard he has for his own life, just how afraid she should be of loving him. Scratch that. Just how repulsed she should feel in his presence alone, the thought of loving him ought to make her want to spill her guts out.

Selfishly he keeps his mouth shut, selfishly he lets her play him like a fiddle. She’s not mean about it, she couldn’t be if he begged her to. 

Just like that Renjun hasn’t seen her sober since Donghyuck ran him over with his ugly, stolen car. 

They have been on the road for one week, two weeks, three weeks. At some point it becomes impossible to tell. The car smells like sweat, the back seats soaked in cheap booze, cigarette fumes and dried up vomit. Jaemin had fucked him there a couple of times while Donghyuck was busy pick pocketing every stranger naïve enough to fall for his boyish charms, so there’s probably drying cum between the cushions too. 

At the end it doesn’t matter. They’re never sober enough to really notice the suffocating stench, anyways.

“Hey,” Jaemin jabs her finger between his ribs. There’s no flesh to protect the tender bones so Renjun visibly winces. Huh. So even with a screw loose his body can still register pain. Jaemin’s clearly expecting an indicator that he’s listening so Renjun blinks her way slowly. “You want to fucking die, right?”

Renjun shrugs, neither confirming nor denying it. He's suicidal, alright but he's not about to brag about it out loud.

“Wanna do it tonight?”

There’s mania written all over her face.

She looks fucking insane and for one fleeting moment Renjun wishes she’d never met them. In one way or another this has to be their fault, his and Donghyuck’s. It only makes sense. The guilt quickly washes away and in its place grows an itch. One, which Renjun has been trying to scratch for years now but to no avail. 

Dying by his own hand would have been pitiful. Dying by her hand would have been merciful. Dying by her side, well. He’d never thought that far ahead.

Renjun feels dread creeping on him. He’s forgetting something, something important.

Later when he tastes grainy asphalt on his tongue it hits him.

There’s not two but three bodies stuck like old gum to the road after the car crashes and burns like a straw house. His own and Jaemin’s. And Donghyuck’s.

Even with blood oozing out of his cracked skull Donghyuck looks like he’s seconds away from coaxing you into taking a leap of fate, from convincing you into accompanying him on the adventure of a lifetime. He’s not breathing but he’s more alive than Renjun has been for the past twenty years of his life. Begrudgingly, he realizes that he gets it now. Why Jaemin’s heart bleeds for him, too.

Renjun cranes his neck and sees Jaemin right next to him. Her eyes are wide open, the same crazed look as the one she’d casted him earlier except there’s a fly stuck to her left iris now. Renjun wonders how many days ago did they pass away and why didn’t they take him along.

**Author's Note:**

> clinically i'm insane in case you were wondering. i didn't know whether to post this or not but i guess here we are. i'm going to be frank i quite literally do not remember writing this, it just happened. i wanted to write shit based on lorde lyrics which i fuck with so here we are. there's probably more to come.
> 
> leave your thoughts and prayers in the comments <3
> 
> twitter:[@kittykatjeno](https://twitter.com/kittykatjeno)  
> 


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